1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of disassembling a used article so as to recover reusable parts therefrom, and reassembling the reusable parts into the same article, adding new parts in place of unusable parts of the used article. The present invention also relates to a disassembling and reassembling apparatus for the method.
2. Related Art
In the interest of environmental protection, the modern trend in the industry is toward recycling articles. For example, lens-fitted photographic film packages, which are manufactured by Fiji Photo Film Co., Ltd., are recovered, disassembled and inspected by the manufacturer, to be reused in new lens-fitted photographic film packages ( hereinafter referred to as film packages).
The film package is constituted of a compact plastic resin package body having simple exposure mechanisms incorporated therein and containing photographic film therein. The package body cannot be repeatedly loaded with film. After exposure of all available frames of the contained film, the whole film package is forwarded to a photofinishing laboratory through an agency. In the photofinishing laboratory, the exposed film, which has already been wound in a light-tight container in the package body, is removed for developing and printing. The emptied package body is collected and disassembled by the manufacturer, so as to sort out reusable parts thereof. The reusable parts are reserved for each sort of parts after necessary inspections. Then, the reusable parts are supplied to an automatic assembling line for assembling film packages. Such a film package that takes into account reuse of the parts is disclosed, for example, in JPA 4-177230. Also JPA 3-243930 and U.S Pat. No. 5,021,811 disclose single-use cameras with film preloaded therein which are designed for recycling.
Because the film package does not require cumbersome loading and unloading of the film, nor complicated operation, the film package enables anyone to enjoy photography with ease. Besides, in order to make the price of the film package comparable to the price of ISO 135 type photographic film or the like, and to allow anyone to buy the film package, economizing of the film package has been thoroughly pursued.
On the other hand, recycling requires a great deal of operations such as disassembling of articles, sorting of parts, inspection of the parts, and so forth. Because these operations have been carried out mainly by hand, the cost of recycling is rather high when compared with the cost of manufacturing anew, on the account of personnel expenses. Furthermore, according to the conventional recycling system, a large scale depot for reserving the recovered parts and a transport system for supplying these parts to the assembling line are necessary. Therefore, a system for controlling and managing the stock-and-running of the recovered parts is also necessary.
Another factor that increases the cost of recycling is that the time required from the recovery to the reassembling of the reusable parts in the conventional recycling system is too long.